For all his warts, Governor Bruce Rauner deserves credit for putting the brakes on the Illiana Tollway, a pet project of his predecessor Pat Quinn. That $1.3 billion highway boondoggle, proposed for a corridor roughly ten miles south of the metro region, would have been funded by a public-private partnership (P3) that would have put Illinois taxpayers on the hook for some $500 million in borrowing.
The Stevenson project would cover the 25-mile stretch between the Veterans Memorial Tollway (I-355) and the Dan Ryan Expressway (I-90/94). The state says this segment of I-55 carries roughly 170,000 vehicles a day and is plagued by long, unreliable travel times.
Assuming the toll prices are well calibrated to reflect demand, drivers who pay would be rewarded with faster, jam-free trips. That makes it more likely that an investor could be paid back via toll revenue than would have been the case with the half-baked Illiana.
—Ron Burke, director of the Active Transportation Alliance
When I asked the Illinois Department of Transportation to respond to Burke’s arguments, spokeswoman Gianna Urgo provided a one-sentence statement: “IDOT is committed to exploring all possible solutions that reduce congestion, enhance safety and improve travel times.”
“What it boils down to is whether one wants to concede that it’s inevitable the Stevenson would be expanded,” he said. “There’s an old saying: Adding highway capacity to fight congestion is like loosening one’s belt to fight obesity.”
